{"id":5045,"date":"2005-08-24T09:54:41","date_gmt":"2005-08-24T13:54:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/5045.html"},"modified":"2005-08-24T09:54:41","modified_gmt":"2005-08-24T13:54:41","slug":"why-abc-is-stuck-with-robertson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/why-abc-is-stuck-with-robertson\/","title":{"rendered":"Why ABC is stuck with Robertson"},"content":{"rendered":"

When TV preacher Pat Robertson goes on national television every day to spew nonsense, he does so on a network owned and operated by ABC\/Disney. In light of this week’s events<\/a>, some are beginning to suggest that arrangement end<\/a>. If only it were that simple.<\/p>\n

“Robertson’s vitriol is not appropriate for children, or for anyone else, for that matter. His calls for the killing of a foreign leader certainly do not belong on a television channel that purports to offer family-friendly programming,” said Media Matters for America President and CEO David Brock.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I couldn’t agree more, but I’m afraid ABC\/Disney is kind of stuck.<\/p>\n

In 1990, Robertson created a cable network, which he called The Family Channel, which ultimately reached tens of millions of homes. In 1997, Robertson went from being wealthy to being extremely<\/i> wealthy when he sold the channel to Fox for almost $2 billion as part of Rupert Murdoch’s drive to build a mini-cable empire (Fox News, Fox Sports, and Fox Kids, on top of regular ol’ Fox).<\/p>\n

Robertson’s contract with Fox, however, included a catch<\/a> — his 700 Club program would have to remain on the network, aired three times a day, until Robertson decided he didn’t want to do the show anymore. Fox grudgingly agreed, but ended up hating this part of the deal.<\/p>\n

Fox executives complained bitterly that Robertson’s show kept them from creating a coherent strategy for the network.<\/p>\n

“Fox Family was doomed from the start because it’s very hard to be [programmed for] kids all day and have The 700 Club in the middle of your daytime lineup, and then in prime time at 11 p.m.,” a former executive said. Robertson’s show would break up whatever programming momentum the network managed to build, with ratings for the hour of religious programming sliding to nearly zeros and attracting a different audience from the one they sought at other times of the day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Frustrated, Fox dumped the network to ABC\/Disney. Unfortunately, though, Robertson remained part of the deal. The ABC Family Channel is contractually obligated to broadcast a crazed TV preacher for the indefinite future.
\n
\nBrock is right to call on ABC to discontinue Robertson’s broadcasts, and as it turns out, ABC would love nothing more. But there’s that pesky contract to deal with.<\/p>\n

ABC could, in theory, try to buy Robertson out. Fox tried that, but it didn’t work<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The former executive says Fox Family Worldwide chairman\/CEO Saban “did everything he possibly could to buy Pat out of that commitment,” eventually offering hundreds of millions of dollars. But Robertson turned down the money and insisted on keeping the show on the network.<\/p>\n

“The word I hear on the street is Disney would have to pay a billion dollars to get them out of the deal,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For Robertson, having 700 Club on the air keeps the checks rolling in. Throughout his broadcast, Robertson insists that God wants viewers to donate to him, even if they can’t afford it. If the show isn’t on, the suckers don’t hear the pitch.<\/p>\n

For ABC\/Disney, not only can they not afford Robertson’s buy-out demands, they’re also afraid that Robertson’s followers could make it difficult on the ABC Family Channel if they start complaining to cable operators.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, all the network can do is kvetch<\/a> and wait for Robertson to get too-old to bother with the show.<\/p>\n

The ABC Family Channel, one of the outlets for “The 700 Club,” distanced itself from Robertson, saying in a statement that it was contractually obligated to carry the program and had “no editorial control over views expressed by the hosts or guests.”<\/p>\n

“ABC Family strongly rejects the views expressed by Pat Robertson in the Aug. 22 telecast of the program,” the statement said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When TV preacher Pat Robertson goes on national television every day to spew nonsense, he does so on a network owned and operated by ABC\/Disney. In light of this week’s events, some are beginning to suggest that arrangement end. If only it were that simple. “Robertson’s vitriol is not appropriate for children, or for anyone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}